Big pharma get involved in stem cells
12 October 2007 | By Dr Caroline Wright
Three multinational pharmaceutical companies have entered into a
partnership with the UK government to develop human embryonic stem
cells for use in toxicity testing (reported in Reuters). Stem Cells
for Safer Medicine (SC4SM), a non-profit British company to be headed
by Philip Wright, science director at the Association of the British
Pharmaceutical Industry, will be the first major public-private
collaboration in stem cell research. Drug giants GlaxoSmithKline,
AstraZeneca and Roche have each contributed £0.1 million to help fund
the first year's work, whilst the British government is contributing
£0.75 million; other drug companies are expected to join soon.
Within its 5 year programme, the consortium will focus on converting
stem cells into specific differentiated cell lines for toxicity
testing; it will not directly investigate the therapeutic use of stem
cells to treat disease. This type of research falls under the broad
heading of "animal-on-a-
reduce the need for animal testing by providing alternatives for
evaluating drug toxicity. Reduction in live animal testing is
desirable on practical and commercial grounds as well as ethical
grounds. Around 10% of the 3 million animals used for testing in the
UK in 2006 were used for toxicity testing by the pharmaceutical
industry (see Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals
Great Britain 2006) and the number is likely to increase dramatically
as a result of the recent European Union legislation regarding the
regulation of chemicals (REACH).
More than 90% of new drugs entering into clinical trials fail to get
to market, either due to lack of effectiveness or adverse side-
effects not predicted during pre-clinical development. SC4SM will
initially focus on producing liver cells (hepatocytes) from stem
cells, as unexpected liver toxicity is the biggest single reason why
new drugs fail during clinical trials. In the longer term, the
consortium will investigate differentiating stem cells into various
other cell types including heart cells (cardiomyocytes)
http://www.phgfound
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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